I read the correspondence and thought about it. At least with the delay in the release of the update there was some activity in the Discord. Otherwise there is almost no discussion about the game itself, it is not clear whether I am doing something correctly or not. As I already said, there were several trips recently, although very useful and informative, but because of them (and also because of the time spent on going to Steam) I now have a "budget deficit" for the development of the game of about 150 hours. Despite the fact that I can devote 2-3 hours a day to development, taking this time away from my personal life.
Now they promise not to bother me much until autumn and I am thinking about what to spend the next six months of work in the evenings on.
Borland raised a good topic, the right one. We have to admit that the development of the game did not live up to expectations and did not arouse interest among players, except for a small number of fans. Think for yourself, who is interested in a game with such a theme now? The reasons can be discussed at length, this is a topic for a separate conversation. The sanctions and the current situation in the world can also be discussed at length. But I spent time to compile statistics on the game. And the results - 30 subscribers on Boost and Patreon - don't you think that this says a lot about the demand for the game? And there have never been many more. And before the sanctions, the maximum number of subscribers on Patreon did not exceed 50 people. And there is no reason to believe that this number will increase. Of course, I am glad that the game has at least some fans and am very grateful to them for their support, but the total income from Boost and Patreon is now about $ 120 per month.
I made an attempt to go to Steam to somehow justify the investment of time and money. I thought that with such a player base, Steam would be able to make the game development its main income, but...
After deducting the costs of purchasing models, paying the proofreader and translator, Steam brought in an additional 80-100 dollars per month of development. Moreover, the main income came in the first month after the release. The game was bought by everyone who wanted to support me, and now there is practically no income. Moreover, in addition to money, a fairly large amount of time was spent on preparing the Steam version. The release of the next chapter was delayed, including for this reason. And the final results of the release on Steam are not very encouraging.
If you fully develop the plot of the game, as it was intended, now the game is about a third ready. If you force things and cut it a little - by half. If Steam brought in a reasonable amount of money, it would take 1.5 - 2 years to fully complete the game.
Now I am at a crossroads, because I need to finally decide what to do for the next few years. I see three possible scenarios for now:
Option 0 — leave everything as is, continue to slowly develop the game and be content with little. Maybe remove the “extra” high subscription levels from Boost and Patreon, since most subscribers pay $1 anyway. But in fact, you’ll have to feed subscribers with promises and make excuses for the delay in the release. And as you probably already understood, I don’t like to talk about work until it’s done. And the current work schedule doesn’t allow me to set exact deadlines. And the current collections from subscribers don’t allow me to devote more time to the game.
Option 1 — close the subscription to Boost and Patreon, since (you won’t believe it) I myself don’t like it when I don’t live up to subscribers’ expectations and focus only on the Steam version. Justify the purchase of coffee and cigarettes with a small income, slowly develop the game as an evening hobby and post updates as they’re ready.
Option 2 — stop kicking a dead horse. Get out of the sunk cost trap and admit that the game is unlikely to ever justify the investment. As the statistics from F95, worked out on dozens or even hundreds of similar games, say - if the game has not brought in money in the first six months, it will never bring it in again. There are a huge number of games with the "abandoned" tag on the forum. So I am not the first and not the last one who faces such a situation. In my game, I would like to develop the plot of the presence of unusual objects in our world, express some attitude to life and people and even derive some moral, and not just give out a collection of sex scenes. So maybe it would be better to express this plot and moral in another form? For example, write a book, make a "regular" SFW version of the game in the form of a quest in a different setting, more interesting to the mass player, or in some other way, if the players are really interested in the plot of the game, and not just pictures with Lisa and Olga Nikolaevna? Maybe the next few years of my life should be spent on something else, since this option didn't work out?
Sorry if it came out a bit chaotic and letter-heavy. I'd like to know what you think about it.
